Providing security for one's possessions and, thus, safemaking is one of the oldest trades known to man. Today the provision of security for personal property is a multi-million dollar industry. Through its history there have been many improvements in different aspects in the design and construction of safes appropriate for use in a home or small business. For instance, the enclosure has evolved from the simple construction of a heavy box by a blacksmith to the development of a modern hardened and insulated steel enclosure. Similarly, lock mechanisms have evolved from one or two toothed key activated devices to complex multiple-tumbler, magnetic, timer or combination type lock mechanisms. All of these improvements, however, have centered around one design aspect which has remained substantially unchanged, namely, that the construction of a safe consists of a provision of an impenetrable box of a convenient size and shape, a door which may engage and seal the box in a closed and locked condition, multiple bolts which extend typically from the door outwardly into apertures in the door frame of the safe enclosure, and a lock mechanism which causes or permits movement of the bolts to an unlocked or frame disengaged position only in response to a predetermined manipulation which signifies that the manipulator has either the proper key or knowledge of the proper combination of manipulations of the lock mechanism as evidence of the propriety of his access to the contents of the safe.
Due to the special nature of the construction of safes, a guild-type profession developed over the history of safes relating to their assembly. This professional, loosely referred to as a boltworks, utilized carefully guarded trade secrets acquired in an apprentice relationship to take a strongbox constructed by a blacksmith, a lock mechanism constructed by a locksmith and assemble these together with locking bolts and a boltworks mechanism to produce an operating safe. Typically, these boltworks mechanisms had to be custom designed and made to conform to the specific shape and size of the safe door to which they were being mounted. They further required specific adaptation to be compatible with the specific lock mechanism which was selected and mounted for operating the safe.
Lock mechanisms have recently been standardized in that many mechanisms are manufactured with a standardized driving assembly which rotates in response to proper unlocking manipulation irrespective of the size, complexity or design of the lock mechanism thereby becoming suitable for mass manufacturing and assembly into prefabricated boltwork mechanisms. Prior to the present invention, however, boltworks mechanisms were still custom designed to have a size and shape appropriate to a specific compatible design of safe door. Thus, a modern purchaser of a safe had three alternatives. He may purchase an off the shelf safe having a combination of strongbox dimensions, construction, door shape and lock mechanism which individually are not of his choosing and adapt it to his purposes. This alternative also has its vulnerabilities by virture of its mass manufacture and on the shelf availability for inspection by anyone including a thief. He may purchase a custom-designed safe enclosure in terms of box dimension and construction materials but have it designed to utilize a standard-sized mass manufactured off-the-shelf safe door having a limited selection of lock mechanisms. Again, with this more costly alternative, the vulnerabilities of the lock mechanisms would be known to a thief upon seeing the standard make of safe door. Third, he may purchase a custom designed safe enclosure and door and employ a boltworks to create a custom-design boltworks mechanism adapted to the particular custom-sized safe door and enclosure for using a concealed lock mechanism of his choosing. For those purchasers who could not use a standard size or shape of safe door for a particular application or would not risk having the vulnerability of the lock mechanism known by its identification as the mechanism used with a particular make of standard-sized safe door, this third and only available alternative, prior to the present invention, was quite costly in requiring the manufacture of a custom-designed boltworks mechanism.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a universal boltworks mechanism which is a single mechanism design that is compatible with safes having a variety of shapes and sizes of safe doors and is thus suitable for low-cost manufacturing. It is a further object of the invention to disclose and provide a universal boltworks mechanism which may be simply and easily installed by the blacksmith fabricating the safe enclosure thereby eliminating the necessity of engaging a professional boltworks to complete the assembly. It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a standardized boltworks mechanism which is mountable to the interior side of a custom-made safe door such that the particular lock mechanism used, and thus its vulnerabilities, would not be identifiable to a thief merely by viewing the exterior of the safe door.
One aspect of the boltworks profession is the design and construction of a mounting apparatus for mounting the lock mechanism and the door frame engaging bolts to a safe door in a manner which resists accessability to a potential thief. While the door and safe enclosure may be formed of a thick and impenetrable material, there are points of exposure or vulnerability in the construction which must be protected by the boltworks mechanism. Specifically, some portion of the boltworks and lock mechanism must be accessible to the exterior of the safe in order to be manipulable and thus opened by a proper sequence of lock manipulations. Typically, this has meant that a portion of the lock mechanism must be exposed to the exterior through an aperture in the safe door, for example, a tumbler mechanism activated by a key or a combination dial and shaft of a combination lock mechanism. It is known in the art for lock mechanisms themselves to make them resistant to tampering at the point of external access such as the keyway or the shaft of the combination lock and that tampering in this immediate area will cause disablement or disassembly in a locked condition resisting theft of the safe contents. These mechanisms, however, still require protection from access from other directions and for this rely on their associated boltworks mechanism and the enclosure structure of the safe door to prevent tampering access to the mechanism. One such technique of tampering is the drilling of an access hole adjacent to a combination lock mechanism through which a fiber-optic light and scope may be inserted to view the action of the tumbler wheels of the combination lock mechanism and thereby determine the opening combination. Similarly, pounding or hammering of the entire lock mechanism away from the interior of the safe door has in some constructions been a sucessful technique for overcoming the lock mechanism and gaining access to the boltworks whereby manipulation of the boltworks through the aperture of the safe door unlocks the door.
It is therefore yet another object of the present invention to disclose and provide a universal boltworks mechanism which resists tampering of the type just described, preventing access to a combination lock mechanism by a fiber-optic scope or unlocking manipulation of a boltworks mechanism by hammering or drilling or otherwise disabling the lock mechanism itself.